New Music 2013 - Part 1 - Wash The Sins Not Only The Face

As it was in 2011 so it is in 2013. The first post about new music for 2011 concerned the début album Violet Cries by Brighton trio Esben and The Witch.  The first about new music 2013 concerns their sophomore album.

You might guess by the title that this is not likely to be a whole bundle of fluffy music.
  

'Wash The Sins Not Only The Face' is scheduled to be released by Matador Records on January 21, 2013 in the UK. More detail as soon as I have it.

I anticipate adding at least one more, unrelated, post on New Music 2013 before the end of this coming weekend.

Sunday listening (and some more new music)...

Still feeling a bit of the post-festival blues but at least I'm not tired any more. Still looking through the photos that I have taken in the last couple of weeks and listening to... well a strange mixture really. Part of it by, or influenced by, artists that I have heard live recently but interspersed with other stuff, new and old.  Maybe the whole Amy Winehouse thing has had influences in such matters but I seem to have dug out stuff by those who expired prematurely. Alan Hull's 1973 solo album 'Pipedream' being something that was long overdue a revival, once I could find it in my collection that is.
In fact you could make the case that today's playlist is pretty gloomy and introspective but, to me at least, it doesn't seem that way. The album 'Violet Cries', as well as being by Esben and The Witch and a band that I have seen live at Latitude 2010 and 2011, is almost certain to appear on my end of year 'best of' lists.  Some acts work better on some stages but, all things considered, I'm not sure that any can beat the Sunset Stage at Latitude, even if it is raining.

Rachel Davies of Esben & The Witch. Friday, Sunset Stage, Latitude 2011.

I can think of a couple of other albums that might well be tussling with the above in those lists.  This is one that I haven't even heard yet. That sounds stupid I suppose; but then buying new music totally unheard is something that I enjoy. The problem is that the more involved I become the more I hear, which actually makes it harder to do. I've read some reviews - summery music with female vocals - of the début album from Seapony.

'Go With Me' - Seapony.  Hardly Art Records - out now on vinyl, CD and download.

  

Another strong contender is by a band that I saw at EOTR 2010 and again last weekend at Truck 2011. The début album 'Gracious Tide, Take Me Home' will be released by the Tyneside six-piece Lanterns On The Lake on Bella Union Records in early Autumn. 

  

They played a few tracks from it on the Clash Stage at Truck last Sunday, which combined with the EPs that I already have makes this a near certainty. They are also appearing at End of The Road 2011 too. Whilst on the subject of bands touring début albums the first act that I saw at Latitude this year was Montreal's BRAIDS, with the recently released 'Native Speaker' (Kanine Records - vinyl, CD and download) - what a great way to start a festival and again on the delightful Sunset Stage.

   

This stage was also the setting for the best headline show that I have seen so far in 2011, about which more to follow, and once again an act on the trail with their first album offering.

Argyria

Argyria is the condition that results from chronic exposure to, and thus poisoning by, silver or its salts; the obvious symptom is a strange but characteristic bluish-grey pallor of the skin and in its severest form, while rarely fatal, it can lead to more disturbing psychological manifestations. It may merely reveal underlying ones, one of which is synæsthesia (synesthesia).
All-in-all that is hardly a likely topic for a song.  Except, that is, when Esben & The Witch are involved...

Argyria
These strange metallic voices
Gleaming white and breeding light
Delve under your brow
Delve under my brow
Folding, unfolding
They whisper colours
Watch the rainbows flood
Dancing, we're dancing
Pebbles flirting with our toes
Listen to our heartbeats grow
Marble rivers whirl
Minerals swim like fishes
A glorious school of glittering
Innocent eyes, these innocent eyes
These strange metallic voices.